


Your voice, a lullaby

by Asukan



Series: Kakashi/Naruto Summer [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Yamanaka Ino, Canon universe but they have more modern technology, Falling In Love, Gossip, Hokage Hatake Kakashi, Idiots in Love, M/M, Minor Haruno Sakura/Yamanaka Ino, Misunderstandings, Modern technology, Naruto is Just Naruto, News Media, POV Uzumaki Naruto, Pining, Post-War, Social Media, Voice Acting, Voice Kink, knksummer, knksummer2020, knksummerfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25743796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asukan/pseuds/Asukan
Summary: After the war, there was a technological boom. Internet got more widespread, Shinobi were given smartphones (and older, encrypted phones for when they're out on missions), social media started to become a terrifying beast, gossip magazines started to rank the hottest shinobi in the world and Kakashi found the glory of Icha-Icha fanfiction and dog videos.As Naruto returns to Konoha after a boring mission, he finds himself in an article in Teen Leaf - Konoha's newest magazine for teens. People want to know who he's dating and stuff like that. It's strange. It's annoying.He also learns that Kakashi has been asked to narrate a very special audiobook.Well, at least he'll have something nice to listen to each evening.
Relationships: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Hatake Kakashi & Sai, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi & Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi/Uzumaki Naruto, Kyuubi | Nine-tails | Kurama & Uzumaki Naruto, Umino Iruka & Uzumaki Naruto
Series: Kakashi/Naruto Summer [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1850467
Comments: 27
Kudos: 149
Collections: KAKANARU SUMMER EVENTS





	Your voice, a lullaby

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fourth theme for the Kakashi/Naruto event. I went with canon era with modern tech because I'm also doing the High School AU as a separate story. Enjoy gossip rags, shitty wordplay, silver wolves and hunkalicious heartthrobs!
> 
> (All of my stories for this event will be finished, btw. I just wanted to post something for each while it's still arguably summer.)

Naruto woke up to a steady stream of vibrations coming from his nightstand. He grumbled and clumsily fished for his shiny new civilian phone before squinting at the screen. 

_08:16 -_ _5 new messages from Sakura-chan_

Given that she hadn't called his civilian inter-Konoha number or directly called his heavily encrypted brick of a ninja-grade phone, he knew it wasn't so important he couldn't go back to sleep. Still, five messages meant she wanted him to read it as soon as possible. Sakura knew that he'd just returned from a long escort mission, after all. 

With that in mind, he opened the messenger app after a quick tap against the prototype fingerprint sensor that the Konoha Technology Team had developed. Sakura had sent him some links, apparently. He scrolled to the top of the new conversation and started reading.

 _07:56 -_ _LOOK AT THIS! Some magazine called Fire Gazette listed the ten hottest shinobi in the world. Guess who made the list! #9!_

Naruto sat up in bed and clicked the link.

 _“ **T**_ ** _he World’s Hottest Shinobi That Leave Us All Thirsty For More_ ** _  
_ _  
_ _Strong, silent and deadly. Shinobi are the pinnacle of masculine beauty and we here at Fire Gazette have picked out the ten most attractive ones. The pretty, sexy and the drop-dead gorgeous. We know our readers have different tastes, so there’s no order between them. There’s one for everyone in here!”_

It was one of those annoying pages where you had to scroll sideways and load each new page. Why could they never just have it all on the same page and let you scroll down? Naruto sighed but swiped until the second to last page.

Once the picture loaded, dark eyes that looked black in the photo smiled at him from under silver hair, wilder than normal without the usual hitai-ate keeping it under some semblance of control.

 _“Hatake Kakashi, Rokudaime Hokage, was a popular pick from everyone here at the Gazette._ _Everything about him just screams "yummy". The relaxed posture, mysterious demeanour and the way he smiles with his eyes. No one ever sees his face, but we all_ **_know_ ** _he’s one of the_ _best-looking ninjas in the world! This sexy silver wolf makes us all want to howl!”_

It was a good photo. Kakashi was smiling widely underneath his mask, crinkling the skin around his eyes and he was rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. The photographer had caught a moment when sunlight played with his hair and showed off the defined muscles and tendons in his neck, shoulder and arm in a dance of light and shadow. Or so the caption underneath the picture said. It also included two quotes from staff members at the Gazette: _"I want to bite that neck so badly. Imagine being the only one allowed to see the mark!"_ and _“Call me soft, but I want to be the one making him smile like that.”_

Naruto wasn’t sure that his sensei would ever let anyone gnaw at his neck. He did know who had made Kakashi smile like that. 

The photo was from the opening of Konoha’s public library. Kakashi-sensei had been there in his formal Hokage robes, hat and all, for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Then he'd handed over the heavy silks to Naruto, Sai and Sakura once the librarian had asked him to read a story for the youngest children. They'd stood there, leaning against the wall in the back as their sensei had kept his audience enraptured while reading them the tale of the carp that never gave up, and kept jumping and jumping up the river until it became a dragon. Naruto had been just as enraptured by how soft his sensei's voice could be and at the realisation, right then and there at all times, that Kakashi was not just his sensei, but the leader of Konoha. 

They had all chuckled at the sight of a civilian toddler trying to climb onto Kakashi's lap while their dear sensei looked a bit like a startled deer, before gingerly picking up the delicate little thing to make sure the little girl wouldn't topple over. Who knows what was enough to seriously injure a civilian kid, after all? They all looked so fragile next to a ninja.

Afterwards, Kakashi had put on the robes again and grumbled about the heat. Then they'd walked out and enjoyed the sun before heading for the Hokage mansion so Kakashi could put away the robes before team dinner at Ichiraku, where Yamato had been waiting since he'd just returned from a mission and had opted for a shower instead of a stuffy library opening. Naruto had felt silly about not fully getting Kakashi's changed status before. His inauguration as the Rokudaime had been weeks earlier, but taking a mission from him and debriefing afterwards had been similar enough to have him as their team leader that Naruto had mostly just missed having the reassuring presence next to him on missions. And after the war, he was often sent solo on diplomatic missions or escort missions where wealthy clients had paid extra to be protected by Uzumaki Naruto. It had been a long time since he was on a mission with Sakura, Sai or Yamato and he'd missed them just as much. Which is why the team dinner had been a great idea. 

A photographer had run up just as they'd prepared to leave, asking for a photo for an article. Kakashi-sensei had been a bit uncomfortable with the extra attention, but agreed after some needling and a deadpan Sai saying the man looked like he’d stalk them the rest of the day if needed. And so the Rokudaime Hokage had stood, draped in his finery, and given a polite smile to the camera. The photographer had muttered something about _too much_ and requested that dear Hokage-sama please take off the robes for better contrast against the light background. Sai had looked at their sensei thoughtfully and nodded. 

“Your robes and hair both blend into the light paint behind you, Kakashi-sensei,” he’d said, with his head tilted like he tended to do when he took in something he wanted to paint.

Kakashi had glanced over at them before taking off his robes and hat and handing them to Naruto. Then the photographer had flitted about like a fly, going for different angles and trying to get Kakashi to pose. In turn, Naruto’s sensei looked more and more uncomfortable with the situation and Naruto had itched to do something to ease the tension in those normally so relaxed shoulders. Not that the guy behind the camera noticed his model’s unease, since the only tell was his eyes going a bit glassy as he looked silently ahead. Naruto had frowned at the photographer and been tempted to just steal the camera and run away with it. Instead, he’d put on the robes and hat and gave the annoying guy the finger behind his back. Kakashi-sensei had seen it and visually relaxed as he started smiling at Naruto’s antics. Sai and Sakura had noticed Kakashi smiling, and added their own rude gestures and grimaces to the mix. 

“Stunning! Excellent!” the photographer had exclaimed, blissfully aware of the silly grimaces Naruto pulled. Or the unflattering sketch of him that Sai had drawn which had Sakura breaking into giggles. “Thank you, Hokage-sama, these photos will be great! My editor will be pleased.”

They hadn’t known that the photo was meant for a list of the world’s sexiest shinobi, but it did explain the complaint about how the robes had been too much. Sakura had once muttered about expecting him to add a veil to the hat at some point since he might as well go all out. Kakashi had heard it and hummed in consideration. “But then how am I to read Icha-Icha?”

His phone vibrated again with a new message from Sakura, so he tabbed back to their conversation.

 _07:57 -_ _WTF!_ _They haven’t even seen his face but just know he’s the sexiest. Stupid, sexy sensei, huh?_

 _08:03 -_ _If you’re jealous about not making the list, check this out!_

Another link. Naruto clicked it with some trepidation.  
  
This time his own face stared up at him. Naruto gulped and started reading.

“ ** _Konoha’s Heroic Heartthrob!_ **

_Here at Teen Leaf, we wanted to show off our hunkalicious heroes with a new series of monthly deep dives. We’ll write about the hottest Konoha shinobi or kunoichi and tell our readers all we know. But we could not decide who to start with. So we asked our readers to pick their favourite Konoha shinobi. It came to no one’s surprise when the most popular response was The Saviour of the World, Uzumaki Naruto!_

_This 19-year-old blond cutie with a heart of gold caught everyone's attention a couple of years back as he saved us all and has held everyone's attention ever since. And with that sexy tanned skin, eyes that look like the sky and cute whisker marks you just want to bite, who could possibly blame us for not looking away?_

_In our next issue of Teen Leaf, we'll give you all the latest gossip about our favourite hero!"_

Naruto rolled his eyes. What was with all the biting? The part about gossip in the next issue was concerning though. Was he going to be chased by so-called journalists trying to figure out if he was dating anyone? What did those teen magazines normally worry about? He gulped as he realised he’d need to ask Ino about it. She’d taken to the rapid technological development after the war like a fish to water. She’d turned into a master of social media and vlogging and used it to create profiles of foreign shinobi and dignitaries. Give Yamanaka Ino a computer with a fast Internet connection and she’d hand you a detailed dossier on any target in a week. In comparison, Naruto mostly used his phone to call and text his precious people and watch some funny videos sometimes. He’d never been good at sitting still if he could drag someone out for a spar instead. Ino kept rolling her eyes at him and calling him old-fashioned. Could you be old-fashioned if the technology in question was just a year old? 

Anyway, it was time to face Sakura’s teasing so he tabbed back to the conversation again.

 _08:05 -_ _And before you ask: Ino sent me the link. There’s no way the others don’t know already_

 _08:06 -_ _It’s alright, I’ll protect you from Ino. And from rabid fans trying to bite your cheeks. Either pair_

Naruto smiled at that. With a bodyguard like Sakura-chan, he’d stay unmolested for sure. 

_08:18 -_ _But, for real, if you get hounded by vultures from Teen Leaf this week, you might wanna ask sensei for a long mission. Could always hide out in Suna_

Had he not just returned to Konoha after more than a month of escorting and protecting the firstborn daughter of some wealthy lord then it’d be tempting. But he’d missed his home and while he knew Gaara would love to have him visit and that Kakashi-sensei wouldn’t begrudge him a few days off, Naruto wanted to have ramen with his old team, go and bug Iruka-sensei about learning how to cook and then sleep in his own bed.

_“I’ll be fine, Sakura-chan! I should be able to hide from some journalists for a week”_

_“If you’re sure”_

_“Yeah, I’m sure. Meet up for lunch?”_

_“Sure! I’ll get the others :)”_

He sent her back a reply about him going to report his mission to their lazy, perverted Hokage so she didn’t need to text him. Kakashi had a habit of not responding to a text message and showing up to wherever he was invited to anyway if he felt like showing up. Naruto didn’t mind it himself, he knew Kakashi would show barring emergencies but Sakura thought it rude. It probably was. Naruto was a bit iffy on what was polite texting behaviour, or if he was honest, polite interactions period. But he knew that their sensei had always been a bit of a bastard so it wouldn’t be out of character for him to adapt to new technology by annoying people through new means. And look at dog videos and read porn online, of course. Once Hatake Kakashi had discovered that fans of Icha Icha had written their own stories within that universe, the Copy Ninja had been glued to his laptop throughout any meeting and conversation in his office for two weeks.

Naruto got out of bed with a last longing look at the soft pillows, but as his stomach rumbled he realised he’d only eaten rations and soldier pills for the entire way back after the mission. Real food sounded even better than sleep. 

After a filling and nutritious breakfast of Ichiraku’s instant ramen, he was on his way to the Hokage tower. Since it was a sunny day and he had the entire day off and nothing to do until lunch, he decided to walk. 

This was a mistake.

“Naruto-senpai!” 

Naruto looked around and found a large group of girls standing around, all clutching their phones. He recognised a few of them as ninjas who had graduated from the academy around when he came back to Konoha after his travels with Ero-sennin. They’d been left to guard the children of Konoha during the war while being fresh Genins themselves. 

“Want to join us, Naruto-senpai?”  
  
He rubbed the back of his neck and did his best to sound regretful. “Sorry, but I gotta report my latest mission.”

Technically he should just hand over the already filled out paperwork to the mission desk rather than giving it to Kakashi. A C-ranked escort mission of a wealthy civilian was hardly high enough of a priority for a direct report to the Hokage. But he had been on his way to Kakashi’s office so it wasn’t a lie, after all.

“Oh, was the mission difficult?”  
  
“Did you fight anyone?”  
  
Naruto laughed and put a finger to his lips with a wink. “That’s confidential-” it really wasn’t “- and I need to report to Hokage-sama as soon as possible.” He really didn’t. But at least the girls believed him if their wide, eager looks were anything to go by.

He turned around with a wave and started walking. In the distance, he saw Ino and Shikamaru approach and he found himself between a rock and a hard place. He had missed them during his mission, but that was Ino and she knew about the article. Maybe it was better to get it over and done with? He’d never be one for trying to avoid difficult things. Why start with a gossip rag?

Decision made, he ran up to the pair. “Ino! Shikamaru! How have you been?”

Shikamaru gave him a nod as Ino glanced over his shoulder before moving closer.  
  
“Ah, Naruto, welcome back!” Ino said, putting an arm around his and pulling him with her, away from the girls behind them and onto an empty street. “I see you’re avoiding your adoring fans?”  
  
“Don’t remind me!” Naruto might or might not have pouted. “You’re enjoying this, right?”  
  
“While I think it’s nice you get some attention, I think Teen Leaf is the wrong type,” she replied, patting his arm. “A nice interview wouldn’t be bad for Konoha’s reputation, but you deserve more than a teen gossip magazine. I’ll have fun messing with you about it, of course, but I’ll help you keep anything unsavoury being written about you.”

He looked down at her in amazement and grinned before reaching for the hand in the crook of his elbow and grasping it. “Thank you, Ino-chan! You’re the best!”

The heir of the Yamanaka clan blinked before smiling back, equally widely. “Of course, you doofus. Someone’s gotta protect your image now that you’re famous!”

“We were heading over to Chōji’s place,” Shikamaru said, looking at him with a knowing glint in those tired eyes.”But I take it you’re about to report to Hokage-sama?”  
  
“Yeah, mostly to remind him about team lunch,” Naruto replied. “The escort mission went fine.”  
  
“Did the young lady make any overtures, Naruto?” Ino asked, looking at him with an intense stare. 

Naruto tilted his head in confusion. “Eh, no, I don’t think so?”  
  
Ino tapped her chin with a delicately manicured finger and glanced at Shikamaru.  
  
Getting suspicious at this point, Naruto crossed his arms across his chest and wondered if he should call Sakura and ask if she knew what was going on. “What?”  
  
“We were suspecting that the lord paid Konoha so much to request you personally for his daughter’s protection in an attempt to make you fall in love with her,” Shikamaru drawled, looking pained at the idea of anyone getting such an idea. “Why you’d fall madly in love with someone after a few weeks is anyone’s guess.”  
  
Naruto tilted his head at his genius friend and raised his brows. “I’m not a wealthy lord and I’m not considered to be from an old clan. Wouldn’t I make a bad match for a noble family?”  
  
Shikamaru and Ino just stared at him. Then Ino looked up at the sky with a muttered curse. 

“You must know that titles and blood mean little when you are the most powerful man on the planet,” Ino said, sighing. “And you’re hardly without a name, given your parents.”

“The world is changing, Naruto,” Shikamaru said with a shrug. “Mostly due to you. And new alliances need to form.”  
  
Naruto winced. “Treaties and marriage proposals?”  
  
“Only the former so far, but the latter is likely to happen at some point,” Shikamaru replied, glancing up at the clouds. “That last escorting mission and this stupid monthly investigation about your relationships might just be the start of it.”  
  
Ino saw his face and took pity on him. “Let’s not worry about that just yet. The first article needs to be written first for us to know what we’re dealing with.”  
  
“What, we can’t just break into the publisher’s office and figure it out?” Naruto said in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Ino shook her head. “No, unfortunately not. Teen Leaf is a web-based paper written by a lot of different people. There’s no one office to break into. Which means we can only really take them down if they write something slanderous or something that could jeopardy village safety. So far nothing alarming has been leaked. We think it’s written by mostly civilians. Well, maybe newly graduated genin since it seems to be the target audience.”  
  
“Wait, you _actually_ considered breaking in?”  
  
“Of course,” Shikamaru said, with an eyebrow raised as if Naruto was being the unreasonable one. “Anyway, we’ll let you know. Just be careful and avoid talking too much with any strangers asking a lot of questions, alright?”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll be sure to stay away.”  
  
And with a wave, they were gone. Naruto looked towards the Hokage tower and, as he heard the girls from before from behind the corner, gathered chakra in his feet to leap away.

A few startled ANBU guards later, he knocked at Kakashi’s office door, bouncing at the balls of his feet.

“Enter!” 

As soon as Naruto opened the door his sensei glanced up from the pile of paperwork on his desk and smiled at him. “Welcome back, Naruto. How was your mission?”

“Hey, sensei!” he said and stopped in front of the desk. “It was really boring because nothing happened. But the lady was nice enough.”

“Good job. Have you already filed the report?”

“Nah, not yet. I’ve filled out the mission report already but haven’t turned it in. I came here first.”

Kakashi leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow. “Why?”  
  
“Ahh… because I, being the devoted Shinobi that I am, wished to report to my most honourable Hokage-sama at my earliest convenience?"

The raised brow climbed higher. "Cute. Cut the Hokage-sama crap. Now the truth."

“There’s been an article. And I had to run away from some girls.”  
  
Kakashi laughed at him. "I’m sure my predecessors would be delighted to know that the Hokage's office was being used as a place to hide from some young fans. Though it is my sworn duty to safeguard the ninja under my command, which means that I'm honour-bound to keep you safe. But I have to ask, what is so special about this article?”

Naruto opened up the conversation with Sakura again and handed over his phone.

"A hunkalicious heartthrob, huh?" Kakashi said, voice deadpan but Naruto knew the bastard was laughing at him. “And a heroic one at that. Not bad!”

“You’re one to talk, sexy silver wolf,” Naruto muttered, sitting down on the desk with a huff and making himself comfortable. Teasing him or not, Kakashi was one of his most precious people and he’d stick around until Kakashi chased him out of his office.

Kakashi grabbed his cup of coffee and moved it to safety before looking up at his new desk ornament. "What's this about me being, what was it, a sexy silver wolf?"

Naruto nodded at the phone in his sensei's hands. "Scroll up, sensei."

And he did. Naruto looked on in silence as Kakashi opened the Top 10 list, scrolled to the ninth entry and chuckled.

"This would explain Anko howling at me earlier. And Genma's wolf whistle."

Of course, his sensei would stay cool and unbothered at being listed as one of the most attractive shinobi in the entire world. While Naruto got flustered around some teenage girls wanting his attention. He wasn’t used to being looked at. Well, not with warmth and even heat in their eyes. Naruto looked down at his empty hands, plucking at the fabric of his pants, and didn't know how to put it into words.

Kakashi looked at him in silence for a bit before handing the phone back. "I know you're not used to this sort of attention, Naruto. But it's part of the packet when you're famous. You saved the world and have achieved a power no one thought possible. People will look at you with both envy and desire, be that for your power or your body."

"I don't like it, sensei," Naruto muttered, and looked into those dark eyes, trying to get his sensei to understand. "A few years back and they would pretend I didn't exist, and then now people want my autograph and take photos with me. And now some magazine is gonna write stuff about me. I don't get it. I'm nothing special. I just fought in the war to protect my precious people. Like you taught me to do, sensei. Others fought for their villages too. People were dying and I could stop it, so I couldn't abandon them."

Kakashi said nothing for a while, then he stood up and walked closer to put a hand on Naruto's shoulder. "One of these days you'll understand what the rest of us see when we look at you."

Naruto glanced up at his sensei's face, speechless, and felt his cheeks flush. He didn't know what to do or what to say, so he reached up to pat the hand with a teary smile and a muttered thanks. Then he pulled away, feeling a bit embarrassed at getting so worked up about an article.

"Maa, you’re welcome," Kakashi said and ruffled Naruto's hair. Then he sat down on the desk next to Naruto after he pushed some papers aside. "Now, I might as well take that report that was so urgent to give to me, hm? Highly confidential, this escort mission."

Naruto held out the mission report with a chuckle. "I did use that excuse to get away earlier."

Kakashi held it up with one hand and was already reading it as he reached for the cup of coffee and pulled it closer again. Naruto rolled his eyes at how Kakashi used the report as a shield between them as he took a sip. Then Kakashi glanced at him with a smirk. "I guess it could have gone like your first C-rank."

"It wasn't that bad!"

"Had I not already had grey hair, that mission to Wave would have done it," Kakashi said with a mournful sigh. “The other sensei got normal C-ranks with their genins. And I got Chūnin-rank missing-nin and then S-rank ones. Normal teams get a few bandits at most.”  
  
“We had those on the Wave mission, sensei,” Naruto said triumphantly. “So that makes it more normal, right?” 

"We had an army of mercenaries,” his sensei muttered, stamping his seal at the bottom of the report and putting it on top of a tall pile of files. “You know that Kurenai came to me afterwards and told me Kiba demanded an equally impressive mission?”

Naruto thought back to his outburst in the mission room all those years back that had led to them getting the C-rank in the first place. He winced at the idea of Kiba trying the same thing. 

“Poor Kurenai-sensei,” Naruto said and thought about offering to babysit Mirai-chan soon. The genjutsu specialist deserved a break.

“No sympathy for your own poor sensei, I see,” Kakashi said, with large dark eyes looking at him with deep, soulful hurt. Had Naruto not known the man, he might have believed it. Instead, he wondered if Kakashi ever practised his puppy eyes with his ninken. "This is the thanks I get."

"Wouldn't you have been compensated by the bounty on Zabuza and Haku?" Naruto asked with a raised brow. Good enemies that had taught Naruto the importance of fighting for others and never losing his soul or not, a bounty was a bounty and his dear sensei was pragmatic at heart. 

"That's neither here nor there,” Kakashi said. “The emotional stress I was under cannot be repaid by mere money."

“Oh, really?”

Kakashi nodded and slouched over, looking like the very picture of sorrow. In the process, he’d brushed his arm against Naruto’s and Naruto leaned closer, enjoying the steady presence. “So is there anything I can do to apologise for this emotional stress years later? Doing your paperwork for you?”  
  
His Hokage hummed, hand rubbing his chin and glanced behind them at the precarious piles. “You don’t know how tempting that offer is, Naruto. But you’ll have enough paperwork to deal with when you become the Nanadaime, no need to scare you off just yet. Then I’ll never get to retire. No, I have a favour to ask of you."

Naruto glanced warily at the way the skin around dark eyes crinkled as Kakashi's desolate look melted away. That look rarely boded well.

"What sort of favour?"

Kakashi got up from his perch and walked around his desk to a cabinet in the back. He dug out a box and a note from the top drawer. "Jiraiya's old publisher contacted me after the war with an offer to be the narrator for an audiobook project."

"Audiobook?"

"A recording of someone reading a book aloud,” Kakashi explained. “Apparently civilians have listened to these for a few years in larger cities. A way to take in a book while doing chores, or if you're not normally too fond of reading yourself."

"Oh, that's nice! What did he want you to read? The first Icha Icha?"

Kakashi shook his head and handed over the box. "He asked me to narrate _Tales of an Utterly Gutsy Shinobi_. He thought that the sales would skyrocket if it's known that the book is written by the master of the saviour of the world, read by the sensei of the saviour of the world and is the way of life of the saviour of the world. I don't know if that's going to be the case, but I agree that an audiobook released after the war might be a good way to spread Jiraiya's book."

Naruto looked at his sensei, a lump in his throat keeping him from being able to speak. The box trembled in his grasp. Kakashi shifted in place and looked a bit worried at Naruto's silence.

"I said I'd at least record my reading," Kakashi said, gesturing to the box. "It's on tape, CD and saved as an audio file that I can email you. How about you listen to it before I send it to the publisher? You should have a say in who gets to narrate the book, after all. Or do it yourself, honestly."

Naruto carefully placed the box on Kakashi's desk with a shuddering breath.

"Naruto," Kakashi said, with wide eyes as he reached out a hand towards Naruto's shoulder. "Are you alright?"

He shook his head and walked closer. Kakashi withdrew his hand with a frown, looking a bit lost.

"Are you upset with me? I could-oh!" Kakashi's apologetic tone cut off abruptly as Naruto threw himself at the man, pulling him close. His sensei tensed a bit out of surprise, before relaxing and allowing for the embrace. It was rare that Kakashi let people close, the slippery bastard. And it was rarer still for Kakashi to hug back. So as Naruto felt strong arms wrap around his back and shoulders, he grinned and burrowed closer.

"Thank you, sensei," he muttered into Kakashi's neck once he felt he could control his voice again. He felt the other man still before a hand slid from his shoulder to his head, scratching lightly at his scalp. 

"Of course, Naruto."

The beloved voice Naruto that would recognise anywhere was gruffer than normal. He'd never heard Kakashi like that before, his voice was always cool and composed or a bit harsh, clipped with an order.

"I'm sure you'll be perfect for it, sensei. Thank you."

Kakashi laughed and the sound rumbled through his chest before he pulled away to ruffle Naruto's hair.

"You're welcome," the man said, warm eyes looking at him with a smile crinkling them at the edges. So similar to the smile from the photo. "It's the least I could do."


End file.
